46 Chapter 46: The 'Gate' of the Other Shore.
...
"Mika...!"
Tamayo suddenly opened her eyes, she instinctively reached out to the top, wanting to catch something, but caught nothing.
But when the blurred vision gradually focused, the dreamlike wisteria sea had already disappeared.
In its place was the ceiling of her familiar home.
She was slightly stunned, her outstretched hand stagnated in mid-air, her long eyelashes trembling slightly.
"Tamayo-sama!" Yushiro, who was sitting next to her, heard Tamayo's voice, he quickly raised his head, looking worriedly at Tamayo:
"Are you okay! Just now..." Yushiro's voice paused for a moment, he stared at Tamayo's face, lost in thought.
Seemingly aware of Yushiro's gaze, Tamayo slowly turned her head.
She slowly raised her hand and touched her face.
In her hand, was a cold touch.
The tears that had long lost their temperature were silently flowing down her face.
Tamayo looked at the tears on her fingers, she was a bit lost, her hand slowly covered the left half of her face, feeling the tears constantly pouring out of her eyes.
After being in a daze for a while.
Creak...
Tamayo slowly propped up the edge of the bed, trying to sit up.
Seeing this, Yushiro quickly came back to his senses, he leaned over, helping Tamayo sit up:
"...please be careful."
"Do you feel uncomfortable anywhere?"
Upon hearing this, Tamayo, who had been somewhat lost after opening her eyes, slowly blinked, she raised her head, as if coming back to her senses, and shook her head.
Then, Yushiro's purple vertical pupils looked at the table where Tamayo had just been working, his face serious:
"Just now, I carefully checked your workbench."
"I found that that guy's blood is slowly evaporating in the air."
Yushiro looked at Tamayo:
"I'm afraid you unintentionally inhaled that guy's blood, which caused you to faint!"
——Is it because of the Blue Spider Lily Flower?
As he spoke, Yushiro squinted his eyes, a hint of caution in his gaze.
Tamayo listened quietly to Yushiro's words.
She seemed thoughtful.
"...Just now." Tamayo's gaze slowly focused on her workbench, the blood droplet on the microscope had already been collected by Yushiro.
"I saw my daughter."
Tamayo lowered her misty, light purple eyes, her voice filled with nostalgia as she slowly spoke:
"And my husband."
Upon hearing this.
Yushiro, who was deep in thought, somewhat blankly raised his head.
Tamayo, on the other hand, hung her head, her hands intertwined:
"...It definitely wasn't a dream."
After careful contemplation.
Tamayo was certain, her gaze gradually firming:
"That place, is the other side."
After seeing her daughter, Tamayo didn't wake up immediately.
Her "body" continued to sink.
Until —— she fell into a place that seemed quite dark compared to the wisteria flower sea she had just been in.
Unlike the vague figures in the wisteria flower sea, the figures here were all very distorted.
And there, without exception.
——They were all hideous demons with a slash mark on their necks.
When those ugly demons turned around and looked at her with puzzled expressions.
Tamayo suddenly realized.
——This is hell.
She, who had once eaten humans, had to come here to atone for her sins.
This is probably why she couldn't stay by her daughter's side for long, and why there were shackles on her body.
"It's the one who escaped."
"Ah, she finally died."
"Did Muzan-sama kill her?"
"There's no mark on her neck, so it should be."
Such conversations echoed in hell.
After that...
She seemed to have directly opened her eyes and escaped from hell.
Thinking about it, Tamayo raised her head and looked at her desk, at the four syringes filled with Tanjuro's blood.
Don't die...
She remembered the last sentence her daughter had said.
It made her, who had once regretted killing her family and slaughtering innocents, feel incredibly heavy in her heart.
Her ending should have been death.
The tragic scenes of her family's death kept reappearing in front of her.
"Muzan...!" Tamayo gritted her teeth and muttered, her eyebrows tightly furrowed, the veins of a demon rarely appearing on her face.
...
...
...
Several days later.
Night.
In an unknown forest somewhere.
The damp ground was somewhat muddy, in the dim environment, there were deep footprints on the muddy ground.
Pitter-patter, pitter-patter.
The figure of a purple-black snake-patterned feather weave slowly walked through the forest.
He stood tall, with a hideous dark red pattern on his left forehead.
The grotesque sword at his waist proved his identity as a swordsman.
"...Those who exhaust their paths, their destinations are the same."
Kokushibo muttered softly, he raised his head and looked at everything around him.
The powerful perception brought by the transparent world allowed him to observe everything around him, and even vaguely feel the "emotions" of other creatures.
Kokushibo raised his finger, a blue-winged butterfly fluttered down and settled steadily on his fingertip.
This was something he had seen Yoriichi do when he was a child.
Yoriichi...
Kokushibo looked at the butterfly on his fingertip.
I can do it too.
Ever since his battle with Tanjuro, he had been wandering aimlessly for several days.
He was thinking, feeling.
What is the meaning of his existence as a demon?
In the extremely quiet mountains, where no one disturbed him, Kokushibo felt a sense of inner peace that was completely different from before.
He slowly walked onto the open ground, raised his head, and his six eyes looked at the moon revealed between the intersecting treetops.
Snap.
The pitch-black sky gradually became overcast, the sparse moonlight leaked from between the treetops, and finally disappeared completely.
The damp and cold rainwater, through the clouds, fell into Kokushibo's raised eyes.
It started to rain.
The rain in early spring is quite cold.
...
Whoosh...
The dense raindrops connected into lines, forming a curtain of rain, and the downpour washed the forest.
The heavy rain poured down.
The oppressive atmosphere of darkness and dampness suddenly enveloped the entire mountain range.
In the curtain of rain.
"He...haah!"
The figure of a man wearing a straw hat and a straw raincoat was struggling to step on the stones mixed with mud that were washed by the rain.
He reached out to support the stone next to him, resisting the sudden rain with the strong wind, pressing on the straw hat, and walking carefully.
The damp smell of rain filled his nostrils, even though he was wearing a straw raincoat, the clothes on the man were already soaked.
"...Hurry up, hurry up!" His teeth chattered from the cold, he gritted his teeth, his dark red eyes scanned the surroundings through the dense curtain of rain:
"Where is it..."
—He was looking for a kind of herbal medicine.
It's a yellow flower called forsythia.
His wife at home has a high fever that won't go away.
If he doesn't hurry to find the herbal medicine and go back, it might endanger her life.
Thinking of this, the man's sense of urgency became more intense, and his breathing gradually became rapid.
Finally.
In the field of vision where he raised his head to search, the man accurately found it.
—That bunch of yellow flowers that swayed endlessly in the storm, growing on the side of the cliff.
-----
read up to 20++ advanced chapters on patreon.com/GMadman
